The guys with the guns

Top U.S. generals were so concerned that former President Trump might stage a coup or take other illegal actions after his 2020 election loss that they discussed informal plans to stop him, according to excerpts from a forthcoming book obtained by CNN.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley and others were concerned that Trump or his allies would stage a coup in an attempt to have him stay in power, according to Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker's new book, “I Alone Can Fix It,” which is set to be released Tuesday.

According to CNN, the book reports that Milley and other Joint Chiefs were considering resigning one at a time to avoid carrying out the orders of the former president, which they worried might be dangerous or illegal.

[...]

According to CNN, the book reports that Milley was also concerned about Trump’s actions leading up to Jan. 6. The authors wrote that that Milley saw Trump as "the classic authoritarian leader with nothing to lose."

"Milley told his staff that he believed Trump was stoking unrest, possibly in hopes of an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the military," according to the book.

[...]

Milley was reportedly “on guard” for what might transpire following the election and had spoken with lawmakers and friends over the possibility of a coup.

"They may try, but they're not going to f------ succeed," Milley told his deputies, according to the book. "You can't do this without the military. You can't do this without the CIA and the FBI. We're the guys with the guns."

  The Hill

I wouldn't challenge the Trump mob that way. There's always Eric Prince.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  Apparently Trump thought he could snowball two Post reporters. Following is a review of their upcoming book: I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year.

"If George Washington came back from the dead and he chose Abraham Lincoln as his vice president," Trump told them, "I think it would have been very hard for them to beat me."

[...]

Ten weeks after leaving the White House, former president Donald Trump hosted two reporters from The Washington Post at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach mansion, club and base of operation. He told them that before COVID-19 came to the U.S. he had been assured of re-election.

[...]

They might have added that Trump's full four-year average of approval in the Gallup was 41%, four points lower than any other president since polling began. And in the weeks since their work went to press, we have also seen C-SPAN release a survey of 142 historians that rated Trump three slots from the bottom among all presidents in history.

  NPR

If there had been anyone worse, we wouldn't still be a country.

Yet here was Trump in March, sitting in his cavernous lobby with reporters who had already written one highly critical account of his presidency (A Very Stable Genius), which he had denounced as "a work of fiction." Having refused interview requests for that previous book, Trump was "quick to agree to our request this time," according to the authors. "He sought to curate history."

[...]

Rucker and Leonnig report their one-hour appointment with him stretched to two-and-a-half as Trump continued to insist he had actually won the election [...] . Trump expresses profound disappointment with key Republican figures, including Sen. John McCain ("a bad guy") and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell ("I don't think he's smart enough").

Even some of his own team let him down, in Trump's estimation, including his Vice President Mike Pence, his Attorney General William Barr, and the three members of the U.S. Supreme Court he nominated. Trump was especially upset with Brett Kavanaugh, his second nominee to the high court, "suggesting that [the justice] should have tried to intervene in the election [result] as payback for the president standing by his nomination in 2018 in the face of sexual assault allegations," the authors write.

All life is quid pro quo to Trump.

As for the rally he held on Jan. 6 that led his followers to break into the Capitol in an effort to stop the official acknowledgment of the election results, this was actually "a loving crowd," according to Trump. And a large one, too, he adds, "because if you look at that real crowd, the crowd there for the speech, I'll bet you it was over a million people."

Take that bet.

No shit.

Trump seems to regard the pandemic not as a threat to the country but as a problem for his poll numbers and his re-election campaign. He portrays it as an extension of the Democrats' failed effort to remove him from office through impeachment.

[...]

In some of the many Oval Office arguments featured in the book, aides debate which is more to be feared: mass infection or a recession?

Just when the country needs a unified and coherent national response, Trump is seen frantically moving and removing senior staff, counterposing one powerful official against others — in effect, putting cats in a bag.

[...]

Trump tells the authors, in their 2021 interview, that he "should have used the military right away" against the Black Lives Matter protesters. But the authors have extensive reporting to show he tried to move in that direction in late May and early June of 2020 and was discouraged, if not blocked outright by Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

At this point in I Alone, Milley emerges as the hero of the story. And not for the last time, as he will figure again in the weeks before and after the election, and in the tense days of January when the Capitol is attacked and fears of further violence shadow Inauguration Day.

Milley is willing to tell Trump the uniformed services are not in the business of supplanting local police forces or, for that matter the National Guard. When Stephen Miller, Trump's firebrand speechwriter, says troops are needed because demonstrators are "burning down the country," Milley confronts him and orders him to "shut the ___ up."

[...]

Esper came up with a plan to assemble police, National Guard and various federal officers who were not part of the regular armed forces. It was enough to mollify Trump at the time, the authors report, and get him to back away from threats to invoke the Insurrection Act or other authorities for the use of force.

[...]

On Election Night, [...] Florida went early for Trump, followed by Ohio and Iowa. While other swing states remained too close to call, Trump planned a victory celebration there in the White House as soon as one or two fell his way. Then Arizona was called for Biden, first by Fox News and then AP. The Fox call sent Trump into a rage, as Leonnig and Rucker report, shouting at aides and family members to call Rupert Murdoch, call his sons, call Fox anchors and analysts and editors and managers. How could they do this to him?

[...]

Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, urges Trump to simply declare himself the winner in the too-close-to-call states, the book reports. It is a breathtaking suggestion, roundly rejected by Trump's professional staff, but Trump goes on stage and says "Frankly we did win this election" and to some degree the die is cast for the next 11 weeks of chaos, spurious claims, conspiracy theories and, ultimately, insurrection.

[...]

There is good news for Republicans down ballot, as they did well in House and state legislative races and for the moment appeared to cling to their majority in the Senate. But none of that seems to matter to Trump, or even register with him. Convinced he could not have lost legitimately, he listens not only to Giuliani but to a procession of conspiracy theorists and rank opportunists.

[...]

Unable to find his way back to the helm on which he had lost his grip, Trump eventually surrendered to the inevitable. There would be a transfer of power, and it would be peaceful. But he did not have to make it gracious, and he did not.

He eschewed the longstanding traditions of welcoming his successor to the White House or attending the Inauguration. He gave a last speech and flew away, into a kind of uneasy exile, insisting, as he does today, that he will be reinstated in the near future.

And the MAGAts believe him. And they have guns, too.

UPDATE:  Bingo.

In August, Trump reamed out [Tony Fabrizio, a pollster who worked for Netanyahu and Trump] after he warned the president the electorate was “really fatigued”. Trump bellowed: “They’re tired? They’re fatigued? They’re fucking fatigued? Well, I’m fucking fatigued, too.”

  The Guardian

ME, ME, ME!

The book’s rawest revelations concern 6 January. At best, Trump was blasé about Mike Pence’s plight, presiding over confirmation of Biden’s win, stuck inside the Capitol as halls and offices were plundered. Like Nero watching Rome burn, Trump fiddled in front of his TV.

As for the rioters, Trump now claims he and they are one: “They showed up just to show support because I happen to believe the election was rigged at a level like nothing has ever been rigged before.”